chargirlgenius

It's another day home sick for Henry, coughing up a storm, but cheerful. The cleaning lady is here, so we've retreated to the basement. He spotted a bag that looked interesting and asked me to pull it down.

Said bag contains Jeff's collection of Nerf weaponry. Naturally, Henry is scary good at assembling all the parts and making them work. But he's also scary good at *improving* on the original design to make them work better.

I've just gotta say, I'm so glad that we have health insurance and not many neighbors.

"Daddy! No! Don't play with us! We're playing together!" (We've apparently been rendered obsolete)

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"Let's play ancient Egypt! Edward, you lay on the floor and I'll build a [pillow] pyramid on you. You're the pharoh, and now you're undead. Mom! Come be the Egyptologist and find him!"

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"Mom, I love you more than Mac -n- Cheese."

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And lest you fear too much sweet, don't worry. Henry also mooned Edward and said "Look at my butt!" (And got sent to the bench...)

When Jeff and I were last in French, I picked up some kids books in French to read to the boys, just for fun. Jeff is upstairs now reading to Henry. I hear him start in French.

Henry: No! In English! (It's the Christmas story, we can manage the translation)
Jeff: *reads in Middle English*
Henry: No! In English!
Jeff: That IS English!

Children can be so blithe about disaster. Last night a reasonably exciting storm rolled through right around bedtime. The boys happily watched lightning from the porch before the blowing rain drove us inside. While we were out there, Henry kept commenting that trees would fall down and land on us. Or maybe on the house.

Upon returning in, he happily predicted, "the lights and power are going to go out, and then lightning is going to strike the house, and the house will have a fire, and then the firemen will come with their trucks!"

We're trying to impress upon the boys that while they love firetrucks and firemen, a fire in the house would be BAD.

Later, I read Henry some fairy tales (violent things, aren't they?) for bedtime. He's obsessed with evil witches dying, princesses dying and becoming revived, almost anything dying or being killed. I turned off his light, and when he flopped down on his bed, eyes tightly shut, he said, "This is a little like being dead!"

ARGH. My heart can't take this.

Henry has been using our old 2 megapixel camera for snapshots around the house for about the last year. He's finally dropped it one too many times, or rather, Eddie has gotten to it, and it's dead. All of the internals still work, but the lens won't pop out when you turn it on, meaning that it won't open to take pictures.

So, we decided to get him one of those little kid cameras that they can drop and throw all over the place. What a mistake.

Ok, I'm sure that what's most important is that he can play with taking pictures, but I see no reason on earth why the camera has to take such crappy pictures. I mean, for under $100 I can find a 10 megapixel camera, way less if I look at discount sites. Sure, it's not ruggedized, but why would it be so difficult to make a kids camera have 3, or even 2 megapixels?

He's shooting pictures, and he's having fun, but what happens if he manages to get a well-composed picture? It's still going to look like crap. For heaven's sake, he took the picture that is my default LJ user pic. It's conceivable that with a decent camera we could put together a silly album for his grandmother.

There's a flash on the thing, but every picture is too dark or way overexposed. Even a shot that should have been cake, five feet away or so, came out dark and blurry. Which is too bad, because it would have been an otherwise cute picture of Eddie. Ugh.

It's a nice idea, and one that I actually thought of about five years before they appeared on the market, but the execution is awful. I don't know if we can return it, but I'm thinking of looking for older, used point and shoot cameras on the cheap that he needs to try to be careful with, but I won't cry if he ruins.

So, MTA. It went pretty well. The weather was amazingly good, if a little chilly in the morning, and a little sunny in the afternoon, but that's quibbling. It was perfect wool weather, and sun is better than rain any day. Especially at Mud Through the Ages.

We made it right at five for set up. The boys and I explored the site while Jeff worked. Saturday, we arrived a bit late, but shaving a few hours off of the beginning made the end of the day much easier on us, parenting-wise. By the end up Sunday, we were all a bit crunchy, but what else is new. I think maybe it'd be better to not go to site with the boys ahead of time, so all is new and shiney on Saturday.

Henry is in LOVE with Jamestown. Why not? There are tall ships, the fort, the church, a forge, the powder magazine, big fields, guns, motorcycles, swords, tents, fencers, chickens, everything that a little boy could possibly love. We sat and watched somebody make nails for about a half hour, and it was me who dragged him away, not the other way around. When Robert Beddingfield gave Henry a nail on Sunday, Henry was in seventh heaven, clutching it the rest of the day. We wandered through the church shortly after that, where Henry inspeced all of the forged nails and wood joinery in the lectern for well over 30 minutes.

I had one of those "magic moments" in there. You know, those moments where you're transported back, if only for an instant. We were sitting in the lectern, and although it was an Anglican church, and we'd have been good Catholics in 1471, the wood joined with cut nails, Henry looking all studious in his gown, quietly inspecting everything around him, crouching down with the light falling gently on his face. It was a moment. The fur on his gown, the dark wool, it all combined to make just the right picture and feeling for me.

The boys were simply adorable. By the end of Sunday Henry was weary of having his picture taken. He and Edward stole the hearts of so many little old ladies.

They were good. Intense, but relatively good. Had they not been good it would have been impossible, not just intense. It's getting easier. Every year gets just a little more manageable. We do need to come up with some more toys and activities before MTT.

A couple of non sequiter highlights. We met the man who built the HMS Surprise (think Master and Commander). He coordinated the building of a replica of the Rose, an earlier Revolutionary War era warship. The Rose was pressed into service once again as the Surprise, for the movie. She was renamed after that, and is now in San Diego. It was a bit of a geekgasm highlight. We also met the author of the book Growing up the Middle Ages. It was released after Edward was born, and after I did most of the research for my swaddling articles and such. We talked shop and traded notes, and I've resolved to pick up the book.

( ok, on to the pictures )

This morning, I came downstairs after changing into my first layer of dress. I walked into the kitchen, and Henry said brightly, "Mama! You look cute in your dress!"

Jeff swears up and down that he didn't coach Henry to say that. Sure, sure....

No new clothes for me today, but I still feel like a million bucks. :-D

Yesterday Henry told Luana that he was going to go to Washington, and live in the White House. She asked if he was going to be President. He responded that no, he just wanted to live there.

I figure that he can be married to somebody who is elected president. :-)

It was hot, muggy, but I was productive. ( I finally submitted my name and device! )

Well, it's nine words, anyway. I just don't remember what they all are. Eddie was pulling me away the whole time. We also have to continue the discussion on the name spelling, but the ball is at least rolling now.

Eddie and I were on our own - Jeff and Henry stayed home to work on deck painting. We didn't arrive until almost 2, and Eddie hadn't slept. Despite that and the heat, he did pretty well. The whole "I have mama to myself" thing works for him. He played, I chatted a bit, everybody sweltered. I totally regretted not wearing my boy underwear. Short event, we left before court, where I understand some friends received well-deserved awards. Yay!

Today - county fair. Henry and I rode the Ferris wheel, much to both of our delights. We got there shortly after the gates opened, looked at animals, tractors, ate funnel cakes, and had a generally grand time. We were all sweating, so we left before noon when the real heat rolled in. Next year, maybe I'll take Henry for an evening and we'll ride rides together. :-)

Last night, Henry said to me, “Mama, Applecornia* fell down. It got knocked over.”

Considering the earthquake on Tuesday, that was just a little bit on the creepy side!

Then he started talking about airplanes falling down, and I wasn't keen on that. He noticed my concern, and said, "The planes LANDED, mama."

*Applecornia is Henry’s favorite place. It’s where daddy goes on travel sometimes, and is mostly California, although I’ve occasionally had fun getting Henry to say “Minneapolis” and “Indianapolis.” Now Henry makes up little stories about Applecornia.